Roberto Martinez has defended the influx of former Wigan Athletic coaches on to his Everton backroom staff – and insists the club still beats with a Goodison heart.
Concerns have been raised among supporters at the number of men Martinez has subsequently brought with him having become Everton manager in June, not least as the Latics failed to avoid relegation last season.
Graeme Jones (assistant manager), Inaki Bergara (goalkeeping coach), Kevin Reeves (chief scout), Richard Evans (head of performance) and Dennis Lawrence (first-team development coach) have all followed Martinez from the DW Stadium.
And the Spaniard believes it was better to stick with trusted lieutenants after being forced to bolster his coaching staff in the wake of David Moyes taking staff with him to Manchester United.
“We lost the majority of the staff who were heads of department to Manchester United,” said Martinez. “It has not been a huge revolution.
“It has been more adapting to the new way of working and having people that I trust and I know can do the jobs that I need them to.
“I have been very impressed with the staff who are already here and I probably get a lot of guidance from them in terms of what we are as a football club.
“But there is another part where we need to do things in a certain way and I need to do the people who can do that straight away without losing six or seven months for people to get to know what I want. So it is a little bit of a combination.”
Martinez added: “I brought people with huge experience who have been working for a long time now in the Premier League and they know exactly what it takes to achieve the aims that we have.
“But I have been fortunate as well to keep staff who are very very good in what they do. In the medical department, there hasn’t been one single change.
“We added in the performance department, but it hasn’t been a real change.”
And Martinez pointed to the ongoing influence of Alan Stubbs as under-21 coach and Academy head Alan Irvine.
“Having the right person involved with an Evertonian past is important for me because it helps to have people with real passion,” added the Goodison manager.
“It is not necessarily just about bringing in anyone but the right person with an Evertonian past would be a good move going forward.
“But we have Alan Stubbs who has been very, very impressive in his role in the U21s and he is as Evertonian as it gets and we have people at Academy level, Alan Irvine, and we have very very good Evertonians involved already.”
Everton are hopeful of today discovering the extent of Darron Gibson’s knee injury suffered in Sunday’s friendly win over Real Betis.
Gibson departed shortly before half-time with what Martinez described as a “grade one ligament problem” and is regarded as a major doubt for Saturday’s Premier League opener at Norwich City.
I don’t have a problem with Martinez bringing on old staff – it’s the bringing on old Wigan players part that is the problem. His signings resemble a newly promoted team trying to stave off relegation – not a manager who has moved up the Premiership food chain. I understand Everton’s financial situation, but these guys were signed just days after he returned from the Confederations Cup – he didn’t even look anywhere else but Wigan.